Olympics

If you thought all those gag-inducing ads for “Kath & Kim” that NBC ran during the Olympics were awful, wait until you check out the actual show.

Better yet, don’t bother.

Starring Molly Shannon and Selma Blair, “Kath & Kim” follows the outrageous misadventures of a dim, dysfunctional mother-daughter duo. It is based on a comedy that originated in Australia and it might be just cause to immediately cease trade relations with that country.

Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama will visit the “Late Show With David Letterman” next Wednesday, says CBS.

This will be Obama’s fifth visit to the “Late Show.” He first appeared on Nov. 26, 2004 and later on April 9, 2007, after he had announced that he would run for president. He also presented the “Top Ten List” on the show on Jan. 24, 2008 and May 1, 2008.

Also scheduled to appear on Wednesday is U.S. Olympic men’s basketball gold medalist and Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James. This will be James’ first late-night talk show interview since returning from the Olympic Games in Beijing.

So who won the Olympics? Is it China who dominated the gold medal count? Or is it the United States who actually earned the most medals? I’ll go out on a limb here and say it was the Galactic Empire.

Wait a minute, you didn’t see them? Blame China’s the Empire’s tightly controlled media. In one of the funnier mashups I’ve seen in a while, 713 Avenue officers a glimpse of LEGO Star Wars and the Olympics.

If Traveller’s Tales ever decided to make an Olympic-themed game for 2012, I figure it’d look a lot like this. LEGOs can make anything more compelling.

So youâ€™re in the throes of Olympic Fever. You are getting up at 4 a.m. to watch womenâ€™s weightlifting. Youâ€™ve memorized all eight of Michael Phelpsâ€™ medal-winning times. You know the favorite color of all 4 members of the South African rowing team (Surprisingly, itâ€™s mauve).

What happens when the games end? When NBC shuts off that big sports pipeline from Beijing? What will you do?

This game is a collection of Olympic-themed minigames, 24 to be exact. Despite the fact that the events are clearly Olympiad in nature, and the game even has the Olympic theme music, it is not in any way an actual Olympic game. Just so weâ€™re clear: Exactly like the Olympics, but without the marketing tie-in. And the characters have giant heads.

The individual games mostly require frantic rubbing on one part of the screen (to build up speed as a runner, or spin power to throw the discus, for example), then tapping a target on the screen or a button to jump a hurdle, or breathe during a swimming event.

Like everyone else, we’re thrilled to see Michael Phelps win eight gold medals. We all know that the guy is half dolphin, half man and all American! While we’re glued to the TV watching America’s dominance at the Olympic Games, we also had some time to play some video games. Here’s the best of last week.

2. The big piece of news was the EA Studio Showcase 08. We had a chance to stop by the Electronic Arts campus and check out some of their more casual games. These are the titles that probably wouldn’t have played to the hardcore crowd at E3, but still, there was some noteable things such as Grasshopper and Epic partnering with EA to do two separate titles respectively.

Meanwhile, the three big games announced at the event were The Godfather II video game, which includes an interesting real-time strategy element. It kind of reminds me of the old text game Dope Wars. It also has a cool card game behind it. The other announcement was Need for Speed Undercover. The lovely Maggie Q was there to talk about the game. Lastly, I was impressed by a puzzle-platformer that was not namedBraid. Henry Hatsworth is something worth keeping an eye on. We’ll have a preview of the game on Monday.

3. In the e-sports realm, there was big news coming out of the Championship Gaming Series. The league is introducing a Pro-Am division with $40,000 worth of prizes. The other big news was the departure of CEO and Commissioner Andy Reif. He was replaced by Dale Hopkins, a former G4 exec.
4. Meanwhile on our guest review front, devoted sports game reviewer Wes Schwengels played MLB Power Pros 2008 and he loved its depth.
5. Lastly, Spore made some major strides. The game went gold last week. EA showed the first disc fresh off the press at the studio showcase. Meanwhile, Danny found a rumor that a Spore film may be in the works (It should be a documentary.) and that there’s a backlash from — of all people — atheists regarding the game. You can’t win ’em all I suppose.

It’s a great week to be a sports fan. There’s the Olympics that started on Friday. I was up until 3 a.m. watching badminton and equestrian events of all things. If you go to nbcolympics.com later on in the day, you’ll be able to check out some of the events live. You have to download Microsoft Silverlight (which isn’t that bad) and you get nice little buffet of sports to choose from.

Personally, I like to watch some of the weirder sports that you don’t get to see every day like women’s team handball or judo.

But this is a video game blog (that’s Sega’s Beijing Olympics 2008 pictured up there) and without further ado, here’s this weeks highlights.

My column today in the newspapers is mainly about how you can enhance your viewing pleasure while watching the Olympics on NBC and all of its cable siblings.

And while I did briefly touch upon the online coverage, you should know that NBCOlympics.com is going to be a real hot spot over the next couple of weeks.

For one, it’s a great place to get up-to-date event schedules and listings. There’s a page on the site where you can find free Olympics features and content just by entering your zip code. It will also give you access to exclusive live video of ongoing events, as well as the “Olympic Zone,” where you can get stories, video and slideshows from your home area.